We Have Our Estrogen Levels to Blame For Not Liking Another Woman

Nearly every woman has been in this scenario. You meet a woman and for some reason you just don’t like her. No, she didn’t do anything to you or talk badly about you behind your back. You just don’t like her and you can’t really pinpoint a reason why.

It turns out, this could all be due to estrogen levels and ovulation. This new study of 220 women which was published in the journal Biology Letters, found women who had high estrogen levels (which as you know peak every month right before we ovulate during our menstrual cycle) were more likely to think other women who were ovulating were going to steal their date.

The study was conducted by scientists from the University of Bern showing women two photos of other women, where in one photo, a woman was ovulating and in the other, she was not. The women, who were at the high estrogen stage of their cycle, were then asked which woman they thought would be more likely to try to take her date, and it was revealed they were more likely to think the ovulating woman was a man-stealer.

Past research does show men are more attracted to women when they’re ovulating, and it’s apparent other women can sense it.

Janek Lobmaier, Ph.D., lead study author, says his intentions for the study was to find if women find other women who are ovulating attractive, like men do (they do not), and he found these results as well.

This link between the two exists all because of competition.

“We think that detecting subtle cues of current fertility in other women may serve to enhance women’s engagement in specific mate guarding and/or competitive strategies,” he said.

The results also prove the more estrogen women have in their bodies, the better we are at picking up on when other women are fertile.

“Women who are currently fertile pose a greater threat to women with high oestradiol [an estrogenic hormone] levels, who are currently not fertile but have a high potential fertility,” said Lobmaier.

In other words, we have our hormones to blame when we have catty reasons for not liking another woman or being all up on our partners when we’re around a woman who is ovulating.